Thought I had posted this but was too busy painting. Busy day. What can I say!?
Snacks at Costco were good today. That Kirkland wine is pretty tasty!
Thanks for reading.
Margaret xxx
Category: Augusta Georgia
Day 723 -WIP – Three hours of work so far
This is HUGE 28×48 Acrylic. I have only worked on it about three hours this includes drawing the photo to paint it.
I have a few glaring problems which I need to fix before going on. I have made her face and body much too wide. The shadows are nonexistent on her body on the left.
She’s a friend and I intend to fix that. I would fix it even if she weren’t because I would rather make people thinner than they are.
I had intended to paint this but all my friends said paint the next photo because the light is better which is true. I really love her boots. If you know her she wears boots most of the time since she rides horses.
Only problem is that I had already drawn this to do a full sheet watercolor too. It took hours and hours to draw it and LOTS of erasing.
Even in this one the face appears a little wide. Possibly due to the lack of shadows?! 3/4 views are always a pain.
So I guess I will do two since this one took most of the day to draw.
I do think it’s interesting that it was so much easier to draw the second time out. Practice makes perfect right?!!
One last thing. A lot of times I will change the photo to black and white to paint from so if I want to I can give her a red shirt and a purple jacket. I do like the blues better but getting comments it’s TOO pretty.
Sigh! You just can’t make everyone happy can you?! 😋
Colors used so far Golden Quin Nickel Azo Gold, Thalo Blue and Ultramarine Blue ( great for denim), Liquitex Burnt Umber and Titanium white plus a tube of Winsor Purple.
Day 722 – the Miller
Named after its owner Frank Miller the theater is an Arte Moderne theater built in 1938 in downtown Augusta.
This side of Broad Street rarely gets any direct sunlight and of course it’s the side where all the old stores are.
Business office buildings are largely on the other side of Broad the sunny side probably because who wants to shop in the hot summer sun??
The onset of the malls in the late 70s destroyed downtown Augusta business and forced the closure of the Miller in 1980s.
Currently under new ownership of Peter Knox it is slated to reopen fully restored in 2017 as the new home of the Augusta Symphony.
As kids we went to see Disney movies, Beatle movies, and the umpteenth screening of Gone with the Wind here. I distinctly remember watching Swiss Family Robinson and 101 Dalmatians here.
Colors used. Ted Nuttalls colors and sodalite. Really like the way the sodalite granulated on the front of the grey stucco building. I also used a white and a light yellow caran d’ache watercolor crayon and a white gel pen for the lights.
Anyway. Thanks for checking by.
Margaret xxx
Day 721 – Alexis
One of my Aiken painting friends blocking out her new painting.
Alexis always comes to paint dressed to the nines frequently with a scarf flung over her shoulder wearing ballet flats. She says she’s trying to wear out her old work clothes now that she’s retired.
I quipped at her it wouldnt take me long to do in my good clothes with acrylic paint smears.
This painting doesn’t do her justice because she’s also very tiny. I fattened her up a bit. 😁 Sorey Alexis. She works hard on staying slim. Always eating somethings healthy.
Speaking of which I think I will go eat a salad. Big wedding coming aka Mother of the Groom dress. Eeekkk.
Colors used – Ted Nuttalls transparent colors. And sodalite. Makes a great granulating grey.
Day 720 – a Watercolor Finally
I drew this almost a month ago but have been busy painting other things so finally got around to it last nite.
This is an old theater on Broad Street in Augusta GA which still has shows and YES an Elvis show was and is coming up the end of June at Imperial.
Painted with Ted Nuttalls transparent colors with the addition of cerulean. I always have a hard time painting white without my beloved cerulean.
I also used Daniel Smiths primatek colors Serpentine Genuine and Sodalite after seeing samples of them at Jerrys Artarama. You can buy Daniel Smith at most art supply stores as well as online at Cheap Joes and Amazon.
While I am on the subject of Cheap Joes I know the owner and founder Joe Miller a lovely man who recently received a humanitarian award from AWS. He’s the first to step up and voluntarily help artists in need as well as his longtime home Boone NC.
During the devastation of Katrina Joe voluntarily went into the Cheap Joes database to find any artist in the seven states affected by Katrina. Each of them received a studio startup gift certificate from Cheap Joes. He has done this time and again. So BUY from Cheap Joes if you can!!
Oh before I forget the tree was done with a sea sponge. I also used Caran d’ache watercolor crayons to add color to the drawing – white yellow and orange.
I also used a few Winsor Newton watercolor markers – indigo, lamp black, and turquoise.
Thanks For Checking by.
Margaret xxx
Day 720 Happy Fathers Day
My dad, a young 93, loves dogs. He’s a sucker for them. And they love him. Feeds them endless snacks. Feeds them of his dinner plate.
I should be painting something new to post. Goodness knows my sketch books are full of ink sketches begging to be painted BUT there’s a new dog in town. I am babysitting my sons rescue the sweet Wesley aka Cowdog because he’s black and white like the Chic Fil A cows.
I took a photo of this and noticed his head was too small so I added about an 1/8 of an inch along his jaw line.
Here’s the one when his head is too small.
Drawn with a Noodler Konrad with carbon platinum black ink.
Thanks for checking by! Hope you all enjoy your Fathers Day!
Margaret xxx
Day 719 – Saturday
Already again.
Ilania 20×24 acrylic
This only took about an hour to paint. Somehow the thinned nickel Azo gold prepainted background really helped getting her done.
After the first forty minutes.
Of course after I started looking at her on my phoneI thought maybe I should have painted the drape she was sitting on. Her left arm looks chopped off. It’s really behind the chair she sat on. And her right arm though it looks great is suspended in space. So hmm. What do you think?!
She was painted with Winsor violet, liquitex burnt umber and titanium white, and golden fluid pyrrole red and nickel Azo gold.
Al Beyers lovely large oil. Anout 4 feet long. The hand is just amazing. Remember these were all painted in about an hour and a half.
Drew Murphys acrylic. Some lovely skin tones. Cezanne looking today. Great effect.
Cathe Dennis from Lansing, Michigan’s pastel. She even knows where Diamondale is. My daughter in laws family lives there. Love her scribbles. For some reason it reminds me of Toulouse Lautrec.
Ruth Pearls awesome large pastel.
Tom Needhams El Greco he always does beautiful skin tones.
Fred Baker with his always interesting sense of color.
Thanks for checking by.
Margaret xxx
Day 617 Done and a dog or two
All the squiggly lines are glued down now. I like it but will live with it a while before I sign my name. My biggest problem is always deciding when something is done. But for now it is done.
Back to drawing dogs. Noodler Konrad loaded with Deartrementis document brown ink.
Begging ever hopeful Honey. She did get to lick my breakfast plate. This is drawn with a Pentel Hybrid Techna pen that I like to write with a lot. It did a good job drawing too. It’s so fine it requires a lot more cross hatching than the Konrad. The pen isn’t waterproof so a little water and smudging took care of that problem.
HOWEVER when I used it to mark grid lines to enlarge a photo I am going to paint the ink on the photo killed it.
Now I am wondering if Cheap Joes will replace it. They have a one year warranty on all their products. I got it during my class with Ted Nuttall last month and just finally used it. I used their warranty when my paintbrush had a loose ferrell and they replaced it without a problem. Cheap Joes is such a great place.
Thanks for checking by
Margaret
Day 715 – the Abstract
Been working on this today adding the collage bits. I used paper that I painted a few years back. If I had used scrap book paper it wouldn’t be eligible for a lot of watercolor shows.
Here it is before I added the collage bits. Can you find them?!
Black and gold with golden silver or possible golden stainless
These papers are oh so easy to make and I have a large stack of them.
You paint a blobby line of acrylic paint across the top of a piece of printer paper and scrape it down with an old credit card. Let it dry.
Nickel Azo gold with dioxzine purple
Then you repeat with another color. Scrape it down with a credit card.
Spray it with water BEFORE IT DRIES. LET IT DRY and scrape it again. It will peel off paint leaving the splatters from the spray.
Golden stainless nickel Azo gold then golden silver
Thalo? Green and copper
Not sure but the base coat is nickel Azo gold with a golden silver top coat. Not sure what the second layer is. You can do three layers.
Nickel Azo gold with golden silver 
Nickel Azo gold with golden silver and a third color
Turquoise with golden silver 
Quin magenta I think with dioxzine purple
Opalescent light green with copper I think.
I also added pieces of old painted deli wrap paper.
Like you get Hardee’s biscuits in without printing on it.
You paint scrape and stamp them yourself.
Most of them are painted with golden pearlescent and opalescent paints with liquitex solids.
A painted and stamped Ruby Tuesdays napkin
And there’s always those paper towels you wipe your paint brushes with.
Since they are all glued down with gel medium it doesn’t matter that they are not archival. They become plasticized with the medium.
Thanks for checking by.
Margaret xxx
Day 714 – It was
A trick. Found some more that I have not posted. At least I don’t think I did.
Our sweet new friend Lenore
And Piper the service dog. One of my favorite dog sketches ever. I might have posted this one but its so great i can post it again. He’s actually a black standard poodle which is difficult to paint so black shadows are sufficing-artistic license and all that!!!
Here’s the whole page together. No idea why I didn’t paint the while background the same color. Ah well. No do overs with watercolor like one can do with watercolor.
Painted with Ted Nuttalls transparent palette.
And the class synopsis with all John Salimens key points.
Warning. There still may be one more set of pages. Not sure.
Thanks for stopping by.
Margaret off to French classes xxx
Margaret McCarthy Hunt Art 